“Fine.” Beth turned her back, digging under the mattress for her diary. “But I’ll never forgive you for this. Never.”
She scribbled furiously in her book, sheltering in her own little world.
Beth, I love you, Agnes wanted to say, but didn’t. Beth, I’m sorry.
She glanced at the clock, and her heart contracted. It was nearly midnight. She didn’t have much time.
Quietly, Agnes pushed open the trailer door and slipped into the evening air.
The night smelled of lavender, dust, and danger.
Agnes always met the Outsider in the King family cemetery, at the bottom of the hilly meadow that sprawled like a green carpet from their porch, unrolling all the way to the forest’s edge. The graveyard marked the boundary she absolutely couldn’t cross. The end of her world, before the wild Outside took over.
Holding a flashlight and blue picnic cooler, she hurried towards the small collection of headstones that rose from the ground like rotten teeth. The grass was velvet, the moon a white slice.
The Outsider wasn’t there.
Stomach knotting, Agnes sank among the graves to wait.
The King family had lost five children. The stones read: JEREMIAH, STILLBORN. ANNABELLE, STILLBORN. NOAH, STILLBORN. And JONAH. And RUTH.
Ruth had been a beautiful baby, and Agnes would never forget her funeral. The little wooden casket and how the baby’s tiny fingers curled inwards like petals in a bud. The Prophet said God’s will had been done when the fever took the child, and Agnes believed him. But she ached for the baby and for her mother, whom all of Red Creek blamed. It was a sign the woman had earned God’s wrath that so many children had died, and a judgment she had no choice but to accept.
In the graveyard, an electric certainty struck Agnes like lightning. Keeping Ezekiel alive—administering his shots, checking his blood, praying he wouldn’t collapse when she wasn’t there to revive him—her head swam with the mountainous, unholy difficulty of caring for a child so ill, all on her own.
She should walk away. Go home, confess, and beg God’s forgiveness. If Ezekiel fell sick—died, even—well, it wasn’t her place to interfere.
But she was glued to the earth. She loved her baby brother with her whole soul, and she’d rather lose her chance at heaven than see him so sick again.
“Agnes?”
She spun around and saw the Outsider coming towards her. A middle-aged woman dressed in her cotton nurse’s outfit. Her hair frizzed a halo around her head, and her lips were richly painted. Her skin was darker than any she’d ever seen before—an umber nearly black. The Prophet would call her a child of Cain, a member of a race damned long ago. But Agnes struggled to see her that way, carrying as she was a cooler full of lifesaving medicine in a hand spangled with rings.
Her name was Matilda, and two years ago, she’d saved Ezekiel’s life.
And thrust Agnes into this endless, living nightmare.
“Sorry I’m late.” Matilda paused, catching her breath. “It’s chaos at the hospital. Have you had much trouble here?”
“No trouble, ma’am.”
She blinked. “No sickness? Nothing strange?”
Agnes didn’t know what she was talking about and didn’t care. She wished Matilda would just get on with it, so she could get back to her world and forget all about this.
Or try.
“Oh, sweetheart, you’re pale.” Matilda touched her shoulder. “Everything okay at home? You can tell me, you know.”
Agnes looked away, blinking back tears. It would be so much easier if she could hate the Outsider. But Matilda was gentle, motherly, and Agnes had yearned for a mother ever since her own had taken to her bed. Maybe Matilda knew that. Maybe she was only playing a role. Didn’t the Prophet say Outsiders would try to trick you? That they’d hide their wickedness until it was too late?
“Do you ever wish you could leave this place? Go to school?”
Agnes bristled. “I do go to school. On Sundays.”
Matilda frowned. “I mean a real school, with other kids. A public education.”
“I’d hate that more than anything.” Agnes caught herself, lowered her voice. “Outsider teachings are against our faith.”
Matilda smiled sadly. “You’re a good girl, trying to keep faith and care for your brother, too. But Agnes, obedience and faith aren’t the same thing.”
“You don’t like us.” Agnes felt increasingly defensive. “But we’re following God’s word.”
The nurse shook her head. “Just think about it, okay?”
Outsiders are devious, the Prophet always said. Trust them at your peril.
Agnes glanced back at her trailer, small on the hilltop. Every minute she spent in the cemetery she risked everything. If someone caught her, she might never see her siblings again, and the kids were all she’d ever had.
When daylight came and her brother had his medicine, Agnes swore she’d think of the Outsider as little as humanly possible.
“Insulin for thirty days.” Matilda’s tone turned businesslike. She handed Agnes a blue picnic cooler.
It felt heavy in her hand—sinful. In exchange, Agnes passed her the empty one. Also, the piece of folded notebook paper she kept in her breast pocket: Ezekiel’s diabetes log.
In it, she tracked his blood sugar, carbs, and activity. Her chest tightened while Matilda read it over. Agnes was supposed to keep Ezekiel’s blood glucose between 80 and 130, and she tried her best. But despite constant vigilance, his log showed peaks and valleys as mountainous as Red Creek itself.
Matilda’s eyes softened. “Fluctuation is normal. You’re doing a fine job. Let me guess. You’re probably dreaming in numbers now, right?”
Agnes managed a wan smile, thinking of the carb-counter book Matilda had given her two years ago. She’d practically memorized it.
Matilda held her eyes. “Agnes. If he lived in the world, your brother could have all the power of technology keeping him alive.”
Yes, she thought sadly. But what of his soul?
Matilda sighed, resigned. “Where do you keep his insulin, anyway?”
Agnes chewed her lip, knowing how bizarre it would sound. “I bury it in my garden. Deep, where the earth is cool.”
Matilda looked shocked. “Well. I guess you can’t keep it in the fridge. You’re right that I don’t like what I’ve heard about this place. But I do like you.”
Agnes fought the urge to be flattered, which was only weakness, plain and simple. Quickly, she zipped the cooler into her backpack.
When she looked up, Matilda was frowning again, and Agnes’s stomach clenched.
“Listen,” Matilda said. “I can’t make it next month. I’m taking on more hospital shifts.”
She froze, remembering Ezekiel’s first crisis. How close death had come.
“Sweetheart, I’m sending someone else. My son. Danny.”
Her son?
Was she insane?
She opened her mouth to protest, to tell Matilda that she couldn’t under any circumstances sneak out at night to meet a boy. God would surely destroy her for that, if Father didn’t first.
She heard Beth’s voice, rebelliously eager: Is it a boy? Is that it?
Inwardly, she groaned. But the Outsider was already fishing in her purse for car keys. She left her alone and dazed among the graves.